Brendan Rodgers has experienced tough times as a manager and must use that knowledge to sort out the current problems at Celtic, argues another former Celtic manager, Gordon Strachan…
Gordon Strachan has been watching on as things have started to unravel for Brendan Rodgers at Celtic over the past few weeks with his Celtic side losing twice following on from a disappointing draw at home to Motherwell. It’s not a situation that the Irishman has had to deal with previously as Celtic manager but Strachan’s advice to current Celtic boss is that he should use his experiences at Liverpool and Leicester City to help him turn things around and get the Hoops back on track.
“The thing about Brendan is, he knew what was coming because he knew about the stress of managing Celtic,” Strachan, speaking to BoyleSports who offer the latest Glasgow Derby odds, said: “However, he wouldn’t have known what it was like to lose at Celtic because he wasn’t used to that in his first spell, apart from maybe in Europe. It’s not easy going back somewhere, I’ve not done it before myself, so this is a real test of his management.
“But he has experienced tough times with Liverpool and Leicester before so it gives you experience and knowledge to deal with moments just like this. There is no secret and no shortcut to dealing with tough times as a manager sadly.
“The only thing that matters to Celtic or Rangers is just being better than the other. It doesn’t matter about the style of play, the formation, the players or anything like that – you simply have to be better than the other and winning games of football,” the former Celtic boss said.
Gordon Strachan continued: “Don’t forget, Brendan has had to deal with an awful lot of goals going out of the team. Jota leaving was huge, but then also injuries to Liel Abada and Daizen Maeda really harmed the squad – that’s almost 40 goals that has just left the team there. What has happened is that when they had the front three of Kyogo, Abada and Jota, that is a front three where all of them can score goals.
“Now, you have wingers in their place and they are not goalscorers, which is a huge difference.”
There is no doubt that the loss of Jota, plus the injury problems have contributed to the current difficult period for the club. The supporters also note that the summer ‘project’ window was far from successful and has landed the incoming manager with numerous player who look well short of the necessary quality to wear the Hoops.
Add to that players returning from loan spells who have been place in the shop window in recent weeks, and have merely provided what the supporters suspected, that their time at Celtic is up.
And in a throw-back to the Covid season, we’re also seeing the return of want-aways as The Celtic Star reported last night. If Celtic learnt anything during that dreadful season it’s that these players should be cleared out as quickly as possible and in the meantime should be nowhere near the team-sheet.
Plenty of advice coming Brendan’s way then, hopefully it’s helpful and we see a strong finish to the year with three important victories before the Bells.
